Israel’s leaders have articulated various goals for the expanding war in Gaza, spreading confusion over how the objectives might be achieved and on what terms the renewed campaign might end.
The primary aim is to squeeze Hamas into releasing the dozens of remaining hostages in Gaza. But other goals have emerged.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had “moved up a gear” in Gaza, capturing more territory, hitting militants and carving up the enclave. He reiterated his ultimate goals of crushing Hamas’s military capabilities and terminating its rule over Gaza, neither of which have been achieved in more than a year of war.
The defense minister, Israel Katz, said a day earlier that the military was seizing more territory to protect its forces and border towns, suggesting the possibility of a longer-term presence.
And over the weekend, Mr. Netanyahu said Israel would enable what he described as the voluntary emigration of Gazans, without clarifying where they would go.
If all of these different objectives have created uncertainty about what is to come, that may be intentional.
The military chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said on Wednesday that Israel would “preserve operational ambiguity and the element of surprise” during a field visit to Gaza. “The only thing that can halt our advance is the release of our hostages!”
Israeli forces appear to be gradually dissecting the enclave into separate districts, in part to encircle and restrict the movement of Hamas fighters who have regrouped in different areas, according to analysts.
But as the military attacks areas of Gaza that it had already conquered multiple times before, as well as some new ones, questions remain about what the forces can do this time that they couldn’t do in more than 15 months of fighting.
“The government has not yet presented a viable diplomatic framework that will translate the military achievements into realizing the war objectives over time and justify the prices paid for them,” said Assaf Orion, a retired Israeli brigadier general who is now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Israel’s ambiguity about its endgame in Gaza could also serve to satisfy the far-right members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition and buttress his grip on power by leaving open an option of fully occupying the enclave and, eventually, building new Jewish settlements there.
Nor is it clear how the campaign will help the remaining hostages who were taken in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which ignited the war. Hamas is insisting on negotiations as the only way to free them, demanding a full Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza and a permanent end to the war.
Israel has conditioned any end of the war on the disarmament of Hamas and its leaders leaving Gaza, terms the group has refused.
Former hostages have testified that their conditions in captivity only worsened as Israeli military pressure increased and that they feared being killed at any moment by their captors or Israeli bombardment.
To a large extent, Mr. Orion said of Israel’s renewed offensive, “it is a development that endangers the lives of the remaining hostages.” On Wednesday, a group representing the families of hostages said they were “horrified” to wake up to Mr. Katz’s announcement about the expansion of military operations in Gaza.
Israel broke a two-month cease-fire with Hamas on March 18 after talks to extend the truce stalled.
In the weeks since, Israeli troops have retaken most of the Netzarim Corridor, a route dividing the northern and southern halves of Gaza. On Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu said Israeli forces were seizing another east-west corridor in southern Gaza.
The military has recently thickened parts of a buffer zone inside Gaza’s perimeter, and it has expanded ground raids in the northern and southern ends of the enclave along with issuing sweeping evacuation orders.
On Thursday, the military issued more evacuation warnings for residents of neighborhoods in eastern Gaza City ahead of operations there.
That has led to the displacement of more than 140,000 people in Gaza since the cease-fire broke down, according to the United Nations.
More than 1,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the cease-fire collapsed, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
In another tactic aimed at pressuring Hamas, Israel halted the entry of all commercial goods and humanitarian aid into Gaza a month ago, leading to price gouging by local merchants and shortages. The World Food Program, a U.N. agency, said this week it had run out of the flour and fuel needed to keep bakeries in Gaza open.
Gaza health officials say that more than 50,000 people have been killed in the enclave in the war prompted by the Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and in which 250 were taken to Gaza as hostages.
Israel believes up to 24 living hostages are being held in Gaza along with the remains of about 35 others.
Isabel Kershner, a Times correspondent in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990. More about Isabel Kershner
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